The forest swallowed him whole.
No torch. No sound. Only the weight of ancient bark and breathless leaves pressing from every direction, like a coffin woven from roots and rot. A dozen broken blades jutted from the soil. Blood had long since dried into the earth. Splinters of cracked shields hung like dead leaves from the trees.
"Mercenaries," Icariel muttered. "Or the ones who hunted monsters and didn't return."
His boots made no sound. The dirt was too soft—like it had been padded by the corpses of forgotten beasts, their bones now mulch beneath the moss. He crouched beneath a crooked tree, its bark scorched and clawed by something that shouldn't have existed.
He closed his eyes.
White Sense.
He focused extended it farther, stretching the boundary of his detection like a breath held too long.
Four presences.
Low mana. Bestial. One was twitchy and uneven, flickering like a flame struggling to imitate life.
"That one," he said.
"Dungeon spawn," the voice confirmed. "A fragment of the gate. One of the entrances."
Icariel exhaled. The air was bitter.
This wasn't like the training grounds where he first learned to shape mana nor the chaos in the elven tribe that demanded survival. This… this was different.
No one pushed him here.
He had chosen this.
For the first time, he walked into danger not to survive—
—but to grow.
This was the first step into the unknown, walked not out of fear, but hunger. A hunger to steal from fate what it always withheld:
Power.
The power to shape his own life. A life worth living. A life he could one day be proud to carry.
He moved.
Time blurred. Minutes became hours. Trees thinned until they stood like watchmen in a clearing. And there it was—a ripple in the air, a horizontal black gash in space. The dungeon.
Like a wound refusing to scab.
It pulsed. Chaotic. Crude. The same unstable type as the one near the river—the one that killed Groon and Fronta.
Around it, the carcasses of mana-twisted animals twitched in the dirt, their flesh warped into mockeries of what they once were.
He stepped forward.
Then—
"Don't."
Not the voice.
A different voice. Clear. Sharp. Feminine.
Icariel stilled.
"I thought she wasn't going to interfere," he muttered.
He didn't look up. Didn't have to.
He'd sensed her since the second he'd stepped through the treeline.
A figure sat on a thick branch above, legs dangling, half-hidden in shadow. A girl, young, draped in a wolf pelt hood. She carried an axe too large for her slim frame, the blade resting across her knees like a threat in wait. Her rust-red eyes gleamed.
"You step through that gate alone," she said, "you die alone. Or worse."
He stared. "Then why are you watching it?"
She smirked. "To see who's stupid enough to try."
He didn't blink.
"And I guess I found a kid trying."
"Who are you?"
"Scout for the Dungeon Recovery Guild," she replied. "Or a thief, depending on the reward."
He studied her.
Three rings pulsed around her heart—mana circles. She was a mage. Not a novice either. Which made the axe even stranger. Nearly as tall as she was, chipped from use—it didn't belong in a spellcaster's hands.
"Voice?"
"She's a professional. Probably here to claim it. Don't push your luck. You've revealed nothing so far. Let it stay that way. Leave. For now."
A pause.
Then Icariel spoke aloud: "Fine."
He turned.
"Thanks for the advice," he said, and began walking away.
The girl blinked.
"He's… leaving? Just like that?"
Nobody turned back from a dungeon. Not after getting that close. Not after seeing the gate pulse like a promise to get stronger and more powerful. Not unless they had a reason deeper than that.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Spirit Zo—"
The dungeon pulsed.
Something stepped out.
KRRRRRRKKKK.
The sound tore through the forest like a bone saw carving into fate. The dungeon gate twisted open, its edges splitting like skin peeled by rusted iron. A hiss bled into the air—not wind, not breath, but something raw, mechanical, and vile. It smelled like wet iron steeped in rotting marrow, a stench that froze the wind and made the trees forget how to breathe.
High on her perch, the girl in the wolf-pelt hood stood. Her rust-red eyes narrowed to slits. Below her, Icariel's head turned slowly, as if dragged by invisible nails.
And then it came.
Not fast.
Not loud.
But wrong.
It crawled through the black slit in reality with the defiance of something that should not exist. Its limbs jerked like broken marionette joints. Flesh mottled with scars and veins pulsing black. Burned skin peeled around bony ridges like cracked armor. Its face had no eyes, only melted wax where sight should be, and a mouth torn sideways, breathing steam like acid into the air. Each exhale poisoned the ground; grass turned black. Roots recoiled. Even the insects stopped chirping, like nature itself chose silence over acknowledgment.
Icariel watched it. His body tensed—not from fear, but instinct. And then... confusion.
"Something's wrong," he thought. "It's injured. Deep. Beaten."
The voice agreed, cold and unshaken.
"That thing... it was eaten by its own kind. Only desperation could've forced it through. To survive."
Icariel's eyes, obsidian and still, tracked every trembling, steaming footstep of the monster.
Then the girl dropped from the branch.
She landed before him, arm raised in warning, eyes locked on the abomination. "Stay back," she ordered. Her voice, this time, wasn't playful—it was steel drawn in the dark. "That's a Boli. Venomous. Cunning. It'll melt your bones if you breathe too close. Dammit... and of course the dungeon opens now."
The creature growled, its sound like knives in water.
"I need to call the Guild," she muttered. "We can't fight this alone."
Then she turned to him. "Go. Run to the city. Tell the guards. Have them alert the Dungeon Recovery Guild—now."
Icariel didn't move. He didn't speak.
He waited.
Not for the girl. Not for the monster.
For two words.
And then, calmly—
"Go in."
The voice was calm but absolute.
The girl stepped forward, fire spiraling from her palm. "MOVE, kid!" she shouted, unleashing the spell with practiced fury.
Flames surged. The Boli lunged.
But neither touched Icariel.
Because he was gone.
A blur—a shadow that passed between spell and claw. Not running toward the city. Not running away.
But into the gate.
Straight into the mouth of the dungeon.
"Wait—!" the girl shouted. Her voice cracked from the force of it. "DAMN THAT KID!"
She didn't have time to chase him.
The Boli screeched and leapt. Another fireburst met its teeth. She snarled, flame dancing around her like bloodied feathers.
But her thoughts remained torn.
"What the hell is wrong with him?"
He entered the dungeon.
The cold didn't bite. It swallowed.
He didn't fall. He didn't teleport. He stepped. From the breath of the forest into something alive and asleep.
The dungeon didn't look like stone or cave. It looked like a cathedral built by something that hated light.
The walls weren't carved—they were grown. Flesh fused with rock. Ancient bones formed arches. Giant ribs curled overhead, forming a cathedral of corpses. Dim veins pulsed with mana-light, casting a blue glow that made shadows look like they whispered.
The air was thick. Too thick. Like walking through a memory soaked in blood.
His boots echoed across a floor made of scales—scales too large for any beast. His reflection stared up at him through their polished blackness, warped and trembling with every silent step.
"So this is a dungeon," Icariel muttered.
His eternally enhanced vision sliced through the gloom. Where others would see a blur, he saw with perfect clarity. And what he saw was different.
Mana. Everywhere.
The air vibrated with it. Each breath he took fed something inside him. Not like mana in the world outside. This was raw. Ancient. Hungry.
"I sense more of those monsters," he said. "Like the one that escaped."
"Yes," the voice murmured. "They're called Boli. Dangerous—but not beyond you. That's why I sent you in. You've grown. Don't ask me how to fight this. You already know. No advice. No tricks. Kill them. Clear the dungeon. Earn it."
Icariel's eyes narrowed. "Yeah... I'll do that."
He moved forward, the thick mana fog swallowing him. Then—he saw them.
Six Boli.
They weren't like the wounded one that crawled from the gate. These were complete. Sharp. Their flesh shimmered with venom. Their mouths split sideways like gaping wounds, breathing steam that smelled of wet copper. They skittered on all fours with grotesque glee.
They didn't charge. They waited.
He moved.
The ground cratered under his footstep.
He blinked through space—one instant still, the next in motion. His fist shattered the skull of the first Boli before it screamed. Before the body hit the ground, a Flame Spear roared into his palm and split the second creature in two.
The third lunged.
Wind Slash—he spun and cleaved its legs from its body with a slice of compressed air. It writhed, screaming like broken glass boiling.
He turned. Another monster circled behind him.
Water Ball.
He conjured it mid-spin and slammed it into the Boli's face. It gasped, confused, before he reinforced the spell—drowning the beast where it stood.
The last two pounced together.
Icariel dashed between them, pivoting like lightning.
Then—
HISSSSSSS.
Venom struck him. A splash of burning violet across his ribs. His skin sizzled. He gasped. Breath caught in his throat. Pain tore through him like razors soaked in acid.
He didn't fall.
He surged forward—
Vital Surge.
A pulse of green. The poison fizzled. His skin reknit mid-motion. Blood evaporated off his arms as he punched through the first monster's throat.
The second one backed up, trembling.
Too late.
He gripped its skull and slammed it down onto its sibling's corpse. Bone split. It twitched. Then silence.
Blood boiled on the scale-floor.
The only sound now was his breathing.
The voice, for once, spoke only a single word:
"Magnificent."
Icariel stood over the twitching bodies, bathed in shadow-light.
"You betrayed your own to serve yourself?"
"Like that advisor did to the elves…"
He looked down at his blood-covered hands. Mana hissed faintly around his skin.
"The thought of betraying those close to me? Plotting against them to gain something for myself?"
His voice cracked—sharp and cold, like ice snapping under pressure.
"Never."
He drew in a breath, slow and steady.
"I wouldn't throw my life away for them. I'm no martyr. But trade their lives for my rise?"
"Not in this life. Not in any life."
He glanced at the dungeon wall—at the twitching shadows it held.
"I'm cursed. I'm broken. But I don't eat my own to live."
"You call that survival?"
"I call it rot."